jail

Militant atheist Harry Taylor hit with ASBO for offensive images in John Lennon airport

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Militant atheist Harry Taylor hit with ASBO for offensive images in John Lennon airport

A MILITANT atheist who put grossly offensive religious images in a prayer room at Liverpool’s John Lennon airport was hit with a five-year ASBO.

But Harry Taylor, 59, claimed he felt faint and had to be given first aid after he was told by Judge Charles James his crimes deserved imprisonment and ruled he should pay £250 costs.

The hearing at Liverpool Crown Court had to be temporarily adjourned while a wheezing Taylor, who clasped his chest, received treatment.

Judge James suspended a six-month sentence for two years, but he warned Taylor: “I don’t give people a second chance.”

He imposed the Asbo, which bans Taylor from carrying religiously offensive material in a public place.

Taylor, of Salford, Greater Manchester, admitted leaving the pictures, which depicted figures from Christianity and Islam, often in sexual poses, in the airport’s multi-faith room on three separate occasions. But the jobless 59-year-old, who labelled himself a militant atheist, said he was simply practising his own religion of “reason and rationality” and was hoping to convert people.

He told jurors he left the items in the room in memory of “his hero” John Lennon. But a jury of 10 women and two men, who all swore their oath on the Bible, rejected his defence. They took just 15 minutes to rule he had left the religious offence material with the intention of causing alarm or distress.

Judge James said: “Not only have you shown no remorse for what you did, but even now you continue to maintain you have done nothing wrong and say that whenever you feel like it you intend to do the same thing again in the future.”

Taylor was ordered to carry out 100 hours’ unpaid work and pay £250 in costs. Brigid Baillie, defending, told the court Taylor, who has a similar previous conviction, said he had learned his lesson.

She said: “Perhaps the message did not hit home before. It has now.”

Priest jailed for sexual assaults

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Clearly, this is gods will. He wants his emissaries to sexually abuse children.

Priest jailed for sexual assaults

A priest who sexually abused boys at a Catholic school over a 20 year period has been jailed for six years.

William Green, 67, of Cale Lane, Aspull, Wigan, admitted 27 counts of sexual abuse on children in August.

He abused pupils aged 11 to 15 at St Bede’s Boys’ School in Manchester between 1975 and 1987 where he worked as a religious education teacher.

He also assaulted an eight-year-old boy at St Margaret Mary’s Junior School, Moston, where he also worked, in 1968.

He was jailed at Manchester Crown Court on Wednesday.

Police were first contacted in late 2007 by a victim who had been abused by Green during the 1970s.

Further inquiries revealed other victims and Green was charged in April 2007.

The court was told how Green abused “lonely” and vulnerable boys hundreds of times.

Alaric Bassano, prosecuting, said Green presented himself as a friendly father figure who won his victims’ trust by offering them privileges and treats of tea, sweets, cigarettes and television in his room.

Passing sentence, Judge Goldstone QC said Green had systematically sexually abused the boys as both a priest and teacher.

Victims’ courage

He said: “These boys were vulnerable and they were groomed by you for the purposes of your own sexual gratification.

“You abused them in the school and on church-related activities.

“As far as the lives of these boys, and later men, were concerned the effects of your abuse on their lives was to last for many years and in some cases it remains.”

The police investigation was carried out with the support and co-operation of the Salford Diocese Child Protection Commission, St Bedes College and Manchester City Council.